WWE SummerSlam 2014 is this weekend. To get us in the spirit (and, frankly, to buy us time to finish up these predictions), today’s Friday Conversation question is a positive one: What’s your favorite SummerSlam memory?
Matches, memorable promos, backstage segments with people in bikinis riding jetskis, whatever … WWE’s been putting on the event since 1988, so there’s a lot to choose from. To get us started, here are a few of mine:
– Brock Lesnar vs. The Rock at SummerSlam 2002. Man, I can’t believe this happened TWELVE YEARS AGO. Brock was the most unreal, inhuman physical specimen the WWE had seen in decades. The Rock had just hit a sweet spot where he figured out he could put on good wrestling matches AND call people names. It had a PURE SPORTS BUILD that was just two monstrous guys working out as hard as possible, and the resulting match felt more like the climax of a Godzilla film than pro wrestling. Two big, fully-powered guys running headfirst into each other and throwing bombs until one of them lost. AND LOSE ONE OF THEM DID.
– The Greenwich Street Fight Love Her Or Leave Her Match at SummerSlam 1999. It shouldn’t have been good. It was a non-wrestler (Shane McMahon) vs. wrestler who couldn’t wrestle (Test). It was for the RIGHT TO DATE SHANE’S SISTER. Just a total absurdist masterpiece, proving that sometimes in wrestling you can pile up 50 things that don’t work and shape them into something that does. I’ve always loved this match.
– Mark Henry vs. Sheamus at SummerSlam 2011. One of my favorite matches of the last five years, and definitely one of the most underrated. It’s just 10 minutes of the hossiest hossing you’ve ever seen, culminating in Mark Henry putting Sheamus through the security railing and a dramatic (dramatic++) crawl back to try to beat the count. It was great storytelling in an era that didn’t have a lot of that, and helped both Sheamus and Henry — two guys prone to falling back into jokey, sincere characters — look like the two toughest dudes in the world. OIL FOIGHT HIM~!
So let’s hear yours. Favorite match, favorite promo, favorite backstage segment, favorite show, whatever. Let us know in the comments below, and keep the conversation going.
